The risk-takers who never lost their cool

When Hollywood offered Fred and Clive Rees a distribution deal for their Book of Cool, they turned it down. Now the pair are award-winners with a product that's about to become huge. So how did they do it? Jamie Milne finds out

The risk-takers who never lost their cool

When Hollywood offered Fred and Clive Rees a distribution deal for their Book of Cool, they turned it down. Now the pair are award-winners with a product that's about to become huge. So how did they do it? Jamie Milne finds out

Thursday 25 May 2006 20.17 EDT
First published on Thursday 25 May 2006 20.17 EDT

Under an azure sky in Sao Paolo, Brazil, blading world champion Fabiola de Silva flips herself into the air from the top of an improbably high ramp. Meanwhile, in Venice Beach, California, "Mad" Chad Taylor juggles buzzing chainsaws like they're skittles. A slight, nonchalant young man by the name of Mr Woo displays complete mastery over a football in a car park in Seoul, South Korea. And in a Vegas casino, sharp-suited wise guy George Jones demonstrates the Niagara Falls card shuffle and how to cheat at poker.

What do these people have in common? They're cool - or at least, they can show you how to do cool things. They are among the teachers in the Book of Cool, a sleekly packaged nine-hour, three-DVD and book tutorial that is being released in UK shops from the start of June. As the title suggests, it promises to share with us mere mortals the knack to pulling off an impressive array of stunts, from bar flairing (think Tom Cruise in Cocktail) and whip-cracking to skateboarding and magic. In effect, it's the show-off's bible.

The men behind it, Fred Rees and his father Clive, may not be show-offs, though they do possess a particularly English strain of gung-ho affability. But having spent around £1m of their own cash bringing their idea to life, with no outside financial backing and no distributor, it's fair to say they have a passing acquaintance with keeping their cool. Now all they have to do is turn a profit.

The seed of the idea came to Londoner Fred, 35, three years ago, when he was going through a lean spell in his career as a director of TV commercials.

He says: "I was lying on my sofa at home thinking, 'what the hell am I going to do with my life?' That morning I had spoken to a friend who had just made a football instruction video - the usual boring, cheap load of rubbish. I wondered why there wasn't something out there that would teach people what they really wanted to know - how to learn the tricks that people like Ronaldinho do in Nike adverts."

The idea quickly snowballed. As well as football, why not frisbee skills, boarding stunts and card tricks? Wouldn't people like to know how to spin a pistol?

Bright idea

Sensing the germ of a good idea, but with little or no money, Fred enlisted the help of Clive, 72, a seasoned film and documentary director. Together they made a short demo of football and frisbee tricks in the hope of securing a distribution deal. It didn't quite work like that.

Clive, who now lives in Swansea, says: "When I looked at the demo, I realised that it was not just interesting but also quite beautiful to watch these people performing. I thought if we could make this inaccessible stuff accessible, it would be great fun and very popular."

Sure enough, when they hawked their demo round the major Hollywood studios, the offers came thick and fast. Most film-makers would have signed on the dotted line there and then. But Fred and Clive didn't like what was on the table.

Fred explains: "If a distribution company invests in a product as opposed to licensing it from you, they end up with creative control, and will probably not only screw it up but also end up taking all the money that the product generates."

It took 11 months to really get the project green-lit. Clive sold his film production office in Soho, central London, and sank the proceeds into making the Book of Cool a reality. With the money in place, Fred, brother Fergus and Clive set off on a 5,000-mile journey to capture the skills of an extraordinary range of highly talented individuals - some of them quite mad, it's fair to say.

Making movies is not cheap. Without heavy duty financial backing, the motels were inexpensive and no one took a salary. "That's the beauty of family businesses," says Fred with a laugh. "They're cheap."

With the film edited and the book completed, next came the tricky job of marketing and selling the package without the backing of a major distributor. The first wave of sales was made through a test store in Los Angeles, where the book proved hugely popular and gained extensive media exposure. Then it was made available through a website (bookofcool.com), which this month won a coveted Webby retail award. So far, 20,000 units have been shifted - partly thanks to a very savvy piece of advertising.

"I read about the Million Dollar Homepage (milliondollarhomepage.com where you can buy one pixel of advertising space for $1, and thought it was a genius idea," explains Fred. "So we spent $4,000 on a banner that says Even Monkeys Fall Out of Trees [a reference to the fact that even the best trickster screws up now and again]. The amount of interest we got through that was phenomenal."

Business model

Internet-based research, self-financing, self-distribution and marketing online: is this a new business model for booksellers and film-makers?

"Selling online, the return from our sales has been much greater than it would have been through retailers. Selling 15,000 online is the equivalent of selling four or five times more in the shops," says Fred.

"There is a holy grail in film production that someone at some point will make a film and sell it directly through the net to the public and avoid the exploitation of the distribution companies and the shops who have a cartel on this kind of thing. Maybe this will be the product to break the mould."

Despite the huge financial gamble he and his father have taken, Fred says the positive aspects of going it alone outweigh the negative.

Clive says: "If we had done a deal with a distributor, the DVD would have been one hour and we would have lost hours of great footage. The book would have been done cheaply. I think what we've done will pay off because the book has integrity."

"That said, we have had a few drunken nights where we've thought, 'Oh my God, what the fuck have we done?'," adds Fred.

Retaining control allowed the Reeses to stick to their principles in two very important ways. First, they could ensure that the Book of Cool itself and the accompanying film met the very highest standards of production. Second, it meant that they could treat the performers well. Though each artist in the film received a flat performance fee, they will also receive a share of future profits - an unusually generous deal.

"People say I'm insane to do that," says Fred. "But because we treated the artists fairly they have been helpful in promoting the book and giving up time to do re-shoots. If you treat people well you get back what you give. We're the opposite of Alan Sugar."

The gamble seems to be paying off. Distributors have been found for the UK and Australia, and there are talks for a US release in September. Feedback from online buyers has been almost universally positive and it seems likely that the book, which is also available for the PlayStation, will be flying off the shelves come Christmas. Filming for Volume Two will start at the Street Football Festival in Berlin, which takes place during the World Cup and features a combined Israeli/Palestinian squad as well as teams from Afghanistan and Africa.

With their maverick sensibility and willingness to gamble, Fred and Clive have brought their idea to fruition almost entirely independently, in a notoriously risky industry, without sacrificing their principles. In fact, they have done one of the coolest things possible, which is to not sell-out.

Or, as Fred puts it: "If you have the balls to wait, you'll find the right people to do business with eventually."